PROGRESSIVE RATIONALIST

Free markets are beneficial but only when agriculture/farming is a large scale business and agri as an occupation doesn't affect the livelihoods of landless agri labourers. After all, they are also part of the economy and their livelihood should be saved until India is industrialized to bear the labour force. The infrastructure for so-called farm gate procurement must be ensured with good logistics, storage and accessibility to the market. Photo by  Nandhu Kumar  on  Unsplash If a farmer with less than 2 hectares of land (80% of the farmers have less than 2 hectares of land according to Agricultural senses 2015–16) needs to sell his produce in his farm gate who will visit there for purchase? Can he expect a large exporter or a food processing company procuring it through agri executives bargaining in their fields? Only a middle man will procure it and sells it to a large procurer. Already farmers are selling their produce to whomever they wish. Only traders need to sell i...

Rape, isn't that a crime in India? No, the rape (by husband) after marriage is not an offence/crime. No wonder that we still talk about criminalising marital rape in our country since India is always being a patriarchal society wherein male/ male child is fostered as commanding gender in a family. This is the long heard story in this country. For a male child, right from his birth, he is being inculcated with the idea of being dominant in the family. This at times ends up at crime against the other gender. When we talk about marital rape, we need to understand, what is rape? Before 2013 amendment to the Indian Penal Code (IPC), it is understood that forceful penetration of the penis into the vagina is rape but soon after the Nirbhaya rape issue in India, the definition of rape has been extended.  We live in a country where approximately 33, 356 rape crimes happened in a year (National Crime Records Bureau NCRB, 2018) wherein which NCRB...

The CoVID19 pandemic has forced the shutdown of all economic activities all over the world. The pandemic has cost many lives and left lakhs of people affected. It also affected the global economy and left many people jobless. This situation has caused reverse migration in the domestic and global level. The Guest workers of India were returning to their home from foreign countries and urban cities of India where they had their livelihoods since the pandemic left them with no income. Pic source: Economic Times The situation of the guest workers is very worst since they don’t have much cash in their hands to survive the lockdown whether domestic or globally. The reason for their situation is ignorance of the govt in the first place. When there is a movement of labour from one place to another the two sides of the govt must have some data about the migration without affecting the liberty to free movement . The other important reasons were rumours, emotions of the labour and very importantl...

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan (Self-reliant India) in his speech on May 12, 2020. The intended objective of this plan is two-fold. First, interim measures such as liquidity infusion and direct cash transfers for the poor will work as shock absorbers for those in acute stress. Second is a long-term reform in growth-critical sectors to make them globally competitive and attractive. Together, these steps may revive the economic activity, impacted by Covid-19 pandemic and create new opportunities for growth in sectors like agriculture, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), power, coal and mining, defence and aviation, etc. Self-reliant: Self-sufficient The self-sufficient vision has been heard at least for about 100 years. The idea of using Swadeshi products has been insisted from 1905 during the Independence struggle, then during the Gandhian politics and later. Whether we stopped using foreign products? Even during India was a closed econom...

For First, Second and Third tranche See: Twenty lakh crores stimulus package – such a big number The Indian Finance Minister announced the final Fifth tranche of the Atmanirbhar Bharath Abhiyaan Stimulus package on May 17. She has announced many sectoral reforms in her fourth and fifth tranche announcements. Also, she gave the breakup for 20 lakh crores including liquidity, credit guarantee and direct spending. What is the urgency for the sectoral reforms during this pandemic? Does the package is really capable of reviving the economy and helping the situation of distress experienced by the poor, migrant workers etc? Reforms in the core sectors FM announced reforms for the 8 core sectors of the economy in the fourth tranche of the financial stimulus package. The core sectors include Atomic energy, space, Defence, Ordinance factories, Power distribution companies, civil aviation, Minerals and Coal. FM announced there will be Public-Private Partnership in Atomic energy, space and civ...

Due to the nationwide lock-down from March 25, all the economic activities are shut down except for the essential services. Since liquor doesn’t come under essential needs liquor shops have also been closed. Though the pandemic situation is still in persistence, the government has allowed the shops to sell liquor. From then there are so many controversies and debates happening for and against the liquor ban. And the people are also agitating against the opening of liquor shops. So, here we will discuss, whether the country really needs a liquor ban or not, along with other associated aspects. Rights come first Though opening liquor shops during this severe pandemic situation is totally irrational and highly condemnable, I differ in the idea of a complete ban on liquor.  The state cannot interfere or coerce its ideologies to the citizens.  It is the right of people to choose their food or drink . People who don’t eat beef would raise voice to ban cow slaughter and who don’t dri...

Liberalism has been fighting the conservatism for the past 2 centuries at least. The civilization or the community which is liberated had undergone a heavy war against the conservatism. It is not easy to fight the age-old feudal structure, belief, inferior mentality of the people and very importantly those who suppressed the weak for their benefit. Conservatism  is a philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization ie., basically the structure of the society in any civilization. Despite all discrimination that we have in society the conservatives support the feudal structure. The  Liberalism  is a philosophy based on liberty, consent of the government and equality before the law. Here the society comes out of the traditional structure that discriminates people based on the community they belong to. The law and opportunities are common for everyone. Getting liberated doesn't mean that we lose all our culture, tradition and our...